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On Friday, presiding judge Anke Grudda said: 'No further evidence is needed. The court has no doubts on this aspect.'

Hanning is charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder over allegations that as a guard, he helped Auschwitz function.

Other survivors have testified at his trial.

Hanning broke his silence for the first time since the war in April, telling victims he is 'truly sorry'.

'I have been silent all my life,' Reinhold Hanning told the Detmold state court. He said he had never told anyone about his wartime service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944.

'I want to say that it disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization,' he said as he sat in a wheelchair, talking with a weak voice into a microphone.

Hanning (center) faces trial for 170,000 counts of accessory to murder over allegations that as a guard, he helped Auschwitz function

Joshua Kaufman, 88, hadn't been invited to testify at the trial of Reinhold Hanning at Detmold state court

However, it was hoped he could tell the court about how he had to remove corpses from gas chambers

'I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions. I am very, very sorry,' he said.

Leon Schwarzbaum was one of some 40 Holocaust survivors who joined the trial as co-plaintiff as allowed under German law.

He and only one other was in court to hear Hanning speak. Afterward, Schwarzbaum said he was happy Hanning apologized but that it wasn't enough.

'I lost 35 family members, how can you apologize for that?' the 95-year-old said. 'I am not angry, I don't want him to go to prison but he should say more for the sake of the young generation today because the historical truth is important.'

Prosecutor Andreas Brendel said in April there was good evidence already that Hanning served in the camp, but that his admission Friday could help win a conviction.

'WHEN THE AMERICANS SMASHED THE DOOR, MY HEART DID SOMERSAULTS': JOSHUA KAUFMAN'S STORY

Joshua Kaufman (left, last year, and right, as young man) was liberated from Dachau in April 1945

Joshua Kaufman was liberated from Dachau concentration camp near Munich on April 29, 1945.

Kaufman, a Hungarian Jew, was a ‘walking corpse’ that day and was hiding in the latrines with his fellow prisoners, unsure if the soldiers who arrived were there to rescue them or were a Nazi death squad sent to liquidate the camp.

'We were confined to barracks by the guards,’ Kaufman has said. ‘This meant most of us were marked for death.

'Then I saw the white flag flying from the watchtower and I realised then that the torture was at an end.

‘When the Americans smashed in the door, my heart did somersaults.'

By then, more than 35,000 people had been murdered at the charnel house, which was the first camp built by the Nazis to house its enemies in 1933. They died in executions, cruel experiments or were starved, worked or beaten to death.

Kaufman, who had lost most of his family in the Holocaust, made it to Israel, where he became a soldier and fought in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

He later emigrated to America where he married, fathered three daughters and became a self-employed plumber.

Then, almost 70 years after being freed from the camp, Kaufman was reunited with his savior.

Last year, Kaufman (left) had an emotional reunion with Daniel Gillespie, the soldier who was his savior

Daniel Gillespie was the soldier who marched with his comrades to free the prisoners – and the first he found was Kaufman.

Gillespie helped an emaciated Kaufman out into the daylight and back into the land of the living. They parted with tears in their eyes, believing they would never see one another again.

For decades, neither knew that they lives within an hour’s drive of each other – until a German documentary crew arranged their poignant reunion in Huntingdon Beach, California, last year.

When he saw the man who saved him, Kaufman kissed his hand and fell to his feet, saying: 'I have wanted to do this for 70 years. I love you, I love you so much.’

Kaufman added: 'I came out of hell into the light. For that, and to him, I am eternally grateful.'

Gillespie, who had fought with his comrades as a machine gunner through Europe to reach the gates of the Dachau camp, said: 'It was the most profound shock of my life. Its liberation changed my life forever.

'We could not understand it. I grew up in California where we had everything in abundance.

'We didn't get how people could let other people starve. They murdered them or just let them die. Again and again the questions moved through my head. And at the same time I was just incredibly angry.'

Pleas are not entered in the German system and such statements to the court are not uncommon, and frequently help mitigate the length of a sentence.

Hanning faces a possible 15 years in prison if convicted but at his age it is unlikely he will ever spend time behind bars given the length of the appeals process.

Ahead of the short statement he made himself, Hanning's attorney Johannes Salmen read a 22-page statement from Hanning detailing how his client had joined the Hitler Youth with his class in 1935 at age 13, then volunteered at 18 for the Waffen SS in 1940 at the urging of his stepmother.

He fought in several battles in World War II before being hit by grenade splinters in his head and leg during close combat in Kiev in 1941.

Hanning spoke fondly of his time at the front and said as he was recovering from his wounds he asked to be sent back but his commander decided he was no longer fit for front-line duty, so sent him to Auschwitz.

Reinhold Hanning broke his silence for the first time since the war in April, telling victims he is 'truly sorry'

Leon Schwarzbaum (pictured) was one of some 40 Holocaust survivors who joined the trial as co-plaintiff as allowed under German law

'I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT AUSCHWITZ WAS': REINHOLD HANNING SPEAKS

Reinhold Hanning (pictured in his SS uniform) broke his silence on working in Auschwitz for the first time since the war at his trial in April

Excerpts from a 22-page typed statement by defendant Reinhold Hanning, a guard at the Auschwitz death camp, which was read out at his trial in Detmold state court in April:

Recovering from wounds suffered in combat in 1941:

'In this time I thought frequently about my comrades with whom I'd fought at the front... I always got along well with my comrades at the front; one helped the other out there. That really appealed to me as a young man.'

On being sent to Auschwitz:

'I didn't give it any thought. I didn't know what Auschwitz was. I only knew I was being assigned to some kind of internal duty.'

Working in Auschwitz:

'Nobody talked to us about it in the first days there, but if someone, like me, was there for a long time then one learned what was going on. People were shot, gassed and burned. I could see how corpses were taken back and forth or moved out. I could smell the burning bodies; I knew corpses were being burned.'

'An atmosphere prevailed there that I can't describe today. One saw what was going on, but couldn't really talk with one's comrades about it. The situation was totally different than at the front. There you could talk with your comrades about anything. One never had to worry that if you told a comrade something he'd pass it along. In Auschwitz it was different. I didn't ever trust anyone there.'

'I'm of the opinion that every member of the guard battalion knew what was going on. This didn't depend upon one's own particular service. Naturally some comrades were closer to it and others less close. With close to it, I mean close to the killing.'

On manning a guard tower:

'During my service in the interior cordon area, I never experienced a prisoner trying to flee from the camp. In my opinion that would have been impossible because of the electric fence. The prisoners were also told that they shouldn't touch the fence. They were told that they'd immediately go up in flames.'

On keeping silent about his past to his wife, children and grandchildren:

'Nobody in my family knew I'd served in Auschwitz. I just couldn't talk about it. I was ashamed. I always said I was involved in the Russian campaign and ended up as a prisoner of war.'

On guilt:

'I want to say that it disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization. I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions. I am very, very sorry.'

Source: AP

He said he didn't know what Auschwitz was at that time, but quickly found out, though he said his initial responsibility was to register patrols and work details coming and going through the front gate, far away from where the killings were taking place.

'Nobody talked to us about it in the first days there, but if someone, like me, was there for a long time then one learned what was going on,' he told the court in the statement, looking down at the table in front of him as it was read aloud.

'People were shot, gassed and burned. I could see how corpses were taken back and forth or moved out. I could smell the burning bodies; I knew corpses were being burned.'

He was later assigned to a guard tower and said all guards had orders to shoot prisoners trying to escape, but he did not say whether he ever shot anyone himself and did not mention any specific involvement in the killings in Auschwitz, where nearly a million Jews and tens of thousands of others were slaughtered.

'I've tried my whole life to forget about this time,' he said. 'Auschwitz was a nightmare.'

Hanning said he didn't know what Auschwitz was at that time, claiming he was in charge of the patrol rota

About one million Jews were killed at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II

THE FORMER SS GUARDS TO GO ON TRIAL FOR SS WAR CRIMES

Hanning's trial is the latest following a precedent set in 2011, when former Ohio auto-worker John Demjanjuk became the first to be convicted for working as a death camp guard without evidence of any involvement in a specific killing.

Demjanjuk's conviction widened the number of possible prosecutions, establishing that simply helping the camp to function was enough to make a guard an accessory to the murders committed there.

Before, prosecutors needed to present evidence of a specific crime, which was a difficult task given the small number of witnesses and perpetrators whose names wee rarely known.

Demdanjuk always denied serving at the death camp, but died before his appeal could be heard.

And last year, prosecutors successfully convicted SS Unterscharfuehrer Oskar Groening, who served in Auschwitz, on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Groening's appeal is expected to be heard sometime this year, but prosecutors are not waiting to move ahead with other cases.

Former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk (pictured left and right) became the first person to be convicted for serving as a camp guard without evidence of involvement in a specific killing

Prosecutors managed to successfully convict SS Unterscharfuehrer Oskar Groening (left and right), who served in Auschwitz, on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder

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American Holocaust survivor denied the chance to testify against SS guard